Text and photos: Joel Gunther ( cooperationon who Baptiste Charbon. )
Veteran firefighter Hervé Trentin stands on the edge of a charred part of the woods in southwestern France, wiping tears from his cheeks.
It was the second time she cried that morning: “I’m sorry,” she said, trying to calm down. “This is our forest. It is heartbreaking to watch it burn.”
Trentin and his small team of firefighters were in an area south of the French city of Bordeaux in the Gironde region, trying to survive a massive fire on Saturday morning.
Their job was to burn the forest, creating firewalls, a tactic they had trained for years to master. A small group of firefighters were able to do this work in the area.
But Trentin also grew up there and was affected by the burning of his homeland.
“It’s hard for me to think that I will never see this forest as it was. I am 53 years old and this forest will need more than 30 years to recover.”
Hervey Trentin cried as he described his burning area.
Trentin has a 3-year-old daughter and when he thinks about the future of the jungle, he thinks of her too.
“I wonder what’s going to happen,” he said, looking up at the trees and beyond to the sky. “I don’t want to say our future will be like what we’re seeing this summer, but… who knows.”
The people of Gironde had not had time to catch their breath since the last great fire, In July, burning more than 20,000 hectares in the same area.
This fire seemed to be under control, but the heat was still on the ground, a so-called “zombie fire” which reappears in prolonged drought conditions and speeds up new fires.
Trentin also battled the July fire, spending up to 48 hours straight in the flames. “I’ve never seen a fire this big before,” he said. “I remember the big fires in ’91 and ’97, but they didn’t spread that fast.”
Somehow the new fire was worse. The vegetation was drier than ever. “Even hardwoods burn like straw“We usually use hardwoods to help us fight the fire,” he explained.
Smoke fills the air in a forest in the Gironde, near Bordeaux.
On Saturday morning, a small team of Trentin specialists burned parts of the woods around many of the families’ homes to protect them.
The task is to burn sections to remove flammable materials before a fire breaks out.
The ground in the Gironde was so dry that the flames they created could sweep wide sections in seconds and uproot tree trunks.
Firefighters can only do this work when the winds are low, to reduce the risk of their fires spreading, but they cannot control the winds.
“It’s a wave coming from above you.”
Last Tuesday night, Trentin and his team carried out a controlled arson near the town of Houston When the wind turned on him.
The first sign, she said, was the feeling of cool air running through her legs, creating a sensation of a breeze. The fire was sucking air out of him as he approached.
Controlled fire burns a plot of land adjacent to a family home. The work must be accurate.
there More than 1,000 French firefighters are now in the Gironde battling this fireWith the help of colleagues from different European countries.
Not everyone shares years of experience in Trenton, and for some this is the first time they’ve encountered a wildfire that can move faster than they can.
As the new fire broke out in the middle of last week, Trentin and co-worker Christophe Dubois were working in the woods when they saw a fireball flying toward them.
“It’s like a wave coming from above you, you can’t get past it,” said Dubois. “You have to crouch down and lie down on the floor.”
But four younger colleagues from Toulouse were left dumbfounded and stood up. Dubois and his colleague rushed to immerse them in water and throw them to the ground, But a few seconds were too long and two had second-degree burns to their legs and face.
Firefighters were preparing to put out controlled fires near Hostens.
“If you don’t have passion for this job, you can’t do it. We may be considered strong people, but we are sensitive. We have a passion for the forest and nature. It hurts to see them burn and it hurts to burn the pines ourselves to save them.”.
“We are waiting for rain, snow, winter or God”
After difficult morning fires broke out around several homes, Dubois and the team returned to base camp where hundreds of firefighters are stationed at all times.
Team members include decades of experience in controlled fire management.
Firefighters help themselves on a map near the edge of the Gironde bushfire.
When they ate, they talked about the rate at which they lost land to the fire last week: about 2,500 hectares in one night.
“I’ve been a firefighter for 40 years and have never seen a fire like this before,” said Jean-Pierre Le Conve, head of tactical firefighting for the Haute-Garonne region, who has two sons on the team.
“We are waiting for rain, snow, winter and the Lord,” he said.
For them, there is no doubt that the climate is changing for the worse.
The flames reached the designated ocean near the Hostens.
“We’re talking about global warming, of course,” Le Conve said. “We see it and feel it. This year is amazing. There are no longer glaciers in the mountains, everything is dry, and the herds have nothing to eat.”
After lunch, the team was called to a wooded area on the outskirts of Belen Belet, a deserted town that suffered severe fires in July and again in August. They set a large tactical fire just 25 meters from a house to protect it.
Firefighters had already asked Claudie Decorno to leave the house when the July fire caused flames near her home, but she refused.
On Saturday, he stood and watched as they burned more of his land, raising cattle for a living and selling his firewood.
“I don’t want to leave my animals and feel more useful here because I can keep an eye on new fires,” Decorno said. But he cried as he watched Trentin, Dubois and the team burn the ground.
On Friday, the power went out. “I’m afraid to lose everything“We will not give up,” he said, “but this is very difficult. Pine trees take many years to grow.”
The heat was intense as the land of Docornau burned.
When the flames touched the trees, firefighters quickly moved to put them out, but the area was completely charred. The rich forest turned into a barren land.
When the fire was over and the air filled with smoke, the firefighters returned to their trucks and the conversation turned to the night before.
A storm was predicted: strong winds, maybe lightning, but a little rain.
It’s scary,” Trentin said. “We don’t know if it will rain. If there is wind and lightning, the fire will get much worse.”
The storm was expected to hit around midnight. At about 11 pm, lightning and thunder began, but the expected rain fell as well.
“Award-winning alcohol trailblazer. Hipster-friendly internetaholic. Twitter ninja. Infuriatingly humble beer lover. Pop culture nerd.”